Armageddon Crazy

SEVEN

Kline

Cynthia Kline woke with a strange man in her bed. It took her half a minute to remember his name. Harry. Harry Carlisle. She had brought a cop home. Not only a cop, but a lieutenant attached to the counter-terrorist task force. Was she developing a deathwish? She had heard that could happen to some agents who stayed undercover for too long. The greatest irony was that she did not feel bad about it. It was hard to think of this Harry Carlisle as the enemy – he behaved too much like a human being. Of course, she had taken care of the basic practicalities. There was nothing in the apartment that would betray her. The diskette that the man in the cowled coat had given her was still in her bag. She was certain that Carlisle was not the kind who would get up from a woman's bed and go through her purse. And even if he ran the disk, it would no doubt appear quite innocuous on the surface.

Cynthia sat up in bed and lit a cigarette. There was no way she could pretend that she had brought him back there with some ulterior motive. She was not seducing for the cause. After the violence and insanity of the previous night, she simply had not wanted to sleep alone. She had picked up Harry Carlisle because he was there and he seemed normal, at least in comparison to the psychotic bloody deacons and the rest of the smug, self-satisfied leeches with whom she had recently been spending the majority of her time. She dragged angrily on her cigarette. The enthusiastic applause in the VIP lounge as the monitors showed the STG club and gas their way down Eighth Avenue was still too vivid.

She had spotted Harry Carlisle after they had come down from the VIP lounge and were waiting in the main entrance area to be allowed to leave. There had been quite an assortment of people marking time in the area. The tech crews from the show sat on flight cases and complained about how they should have been back at the hotel hours earlier. Groups of exhausted-looking NYPD drank coffee and also complained. Deacons tried to hold up their steel-eyed image while the STG stole their thunder.

Harry Carlisle had been sitting by himself on the bottom step of a stationary escalator. He had found a fifth of scotch somewhere and was drinking it from the bottle. Cynthia had been coping with three particularly obnoxious deacons who were trying to hit on her and she had used Carlisle as an excuse to get away from them. She had walked over to the escalator and sat down beside him on the step. Up close, it was clear that he had been battered by the riot. There was blood on his cheek, and his jacket was ripped at the shoulder. The scotch was probably emotional first aid.

She nodded at the bottle. "Could I get a taste of that?"

He looked quizzically at her clerical auxiliary's dress uniform. "Aren't you bothered that someone will see you?"

"Screw them. I've had enough of religion for one night."

He nodded wearily and passed over the bottle. "You can say that again."

She took a long pull on the scotch and then coughed. Harry Carlisle laughed.

"Never did see a deacon drink like that, particularly a lady one."

"Deacons are something else I've had it with."

As he took back the bottle, he looked at her closely. "Don't I know you?"

"I work at Astor Place. I've seen you around the corridors. My name's Cynthia Kline."

"Hello, Cynthia."

"You're Lieutenant Carlisle, right?"

"Right. But you can call me Harry."

He took a long drink and looked reflectively at the bottle. "I kicked a deacon in the balls earlier. You probably know him, too. Goes by the name of Winters."

She giggled. "I know Winters."

It had been about that time that the first bunch of STG had come in, swaggering, fresh from the kill. Their insect gas masks were pulled aside to reveal the flushed faces of hard-eyed, brutalized farmboys. The center 7s of the STG stenciled on their helmets were painted over so they became large white crosses. The very sight of them had started Carlisle on a slow burn that, fueled by whisky and the STGs' loud boasting, quickly escalated to a white-knuckled anger. It was only with the greatest difficulty that she had talked him out of going after a couple of them and probably getting himself killed in the process. It was around that point that she had decided to sleep with him. Transportation had started arriving and the conversation had reached a certain impasse. She knew that he was thinking about suggesting they go somewhere, but he seemed unwilling to come to the point. Finally she had taken the initiative.

"Why don't you come to my place for a nightcap? I don't live too far away."

He had nodded with an expression that suggested that one part of him had surrendered to another. "Thanks. I'd like that."

She mashed out the cigarette. Harry Carlisle was still asleep. His light-brown hair fell over his forehead. He looked so peaceful and vulnerable. Almost like a little boy. As she watched him, he stirred in his sleep but did not wake. When they had first started to make love, he had seemed almost reluctant. It was not as though he didn't find her attractive or he had any doubts about himself. He certainly was not one of those simultaneously horny and guilt-ridden individuals that she had started to think were the norm in these soul-sick times. It was more as if some serious pain in his immediate past had frozen his capacity to be freely and openly sensual. This Harry Carlisle was a complex one. It had taken him awhile to thaw, but once he had put his thoughts on hold and wanned to the purely physical thrill, Cynthia found that her patience had been amply rewarded. He had been very good. His frustrations channeled themselves into pure thrusting energy and, stage by stage, they had worked their way toward noisy, clawing, and more than merely satisfactory orgasm.

She put out a hand and stroked his hair. His eyes opened. He slowly raised his head. For a few seconds, he looked as if he did not know where he was. Then a kind of recognition dawned. His face broke into a lopsided smile.

"Hi."

"You know who I am?"

"Sure, Cynthia, I know who you are."

He was grinning. He stretched out a hand and stroked her breast. "Is there anywhere we have to be?"

She was grinning, too. "I don't think so."

His arms slid around her body and he pulled her to him. She did not resist.

Thirty-five minutes later, she wrapped a sheet around herself, kissed him on the cheek, and padded barefoot to the shower. He watched her go. Hot water actually came out of the shower head on the first try, and Cynthia suddenly felt so irrationally pleased with life that she sang to herself as she lathered. Maybe, despite the odds, it was going to be a good day. When she emerged from the tiny bathroom, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking one of her cigarettes. His face was serious.

"It'd be a very bad idea if we fell in love with each other. We could wind up in a whole lot of trouble."

Her good mood diminished considerably. She sat down in front of the dressing-table mirror and started to brush out her hair. There was a controlled anger in the strokes.

"What makes you think we're going to fall in love with each other? Aren't you taking a hell of a lot for granted? I mean, you're cute and all and good in the sack but- – "

"People often do when they feel comfortable around each other."

"And you're comfortable around me?"

"More comfortable than I've been in a long time."

"How come you don't have a girlfriend or something?"

"It's more like or something."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I had a girlfriend. She's in a camp out in the Midwest. I haven't heard from her in more than eight months."

Cynthia looked at the image of his back in the mirror. So that was what had caused his first reluctance. "I'm sorry."

"So am I."

The outside world, with its peeling paint, poverty, and paranoia, was starting to close in on them. Harry Carlisle must have sensed it, too. He covered the moment by searching on the floor for his shorts. Cynthia could see no way but to go along with it. The day had started.

"You want some coffee?"

"Sure."

The diskette was in her bag, and the games of deceit were waiting to be played. There was no more time to hide under the bedclothes and pretend. For the first time, she noticed that he had old white scar tissue over his left shoulder blade. She picked up the coffeepot and went to the sink. This time, the tap only coughed out a cupful of rust-colored liquid and men quit altogether. Suddenly angry, she slammed down the coffeepot.

"There's no goddamn water."

"It's probably a result of last night's unpleasantness."

"It's off half the time these days. The West Side's been falling apart ever since the Javits Center burned down. I've got some of that generic Coke that tastes funny, or there's half a bottle of vodka in the freezer."

"You're kind of a free spirit for a deacon."

"I'm not a deacon, goddamn it. I'm nothing more than a glorified secretary."

"You look better out of that uniform."

First the water and now this. Cynthia's face froze. "You take a job where you can get it."

"I'm not too proud of what I do, either."

She did not believe him. "Oh, yeah? I thought you cops regarded yourselves as the blue knights."

"That was when we used to chase the bad guys. Now all I do is kiss the asses of psychotic bigots. No disrespect intended."

"Aren't you worried that I might pass the word of this conversation along to my bosses?"

Harry laughed. "You're not wearing any clothes. How would you explain that?"

"Seriously. Don't you worry about what they could do to you for talking like that?"

"I think I'm actually past caring. There could be a warrant out for me now, after what went down last night. Aggravated assault on a holy officer should be worth dismissal from the force and three to five years."

"Winters?"

"The very same. He'd love to hand me my head. If not him, it'll be another one. They're going to get me sooner or later."

"Aren't you frightened?"

"Sure I'm frightened, but what the hell can I do about it? Fear eventually becomes something that you live with."

Cynthia was discovering that she had a lot of sympathy for Harry Carlisle and his attitudes. She could not tell him, however, without coming clear out of her character. She had let it slip quite far enough already.

"You could run. Go to Canada or Brazil. You've got to have the contacts."

Harry Carlisle was struggling into his T-shirt. "I don't know. I may be crazy but I still feel like sticking around. I have this feeling that something's going to go down very soon. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it. Something big's about to happen. That shit last night was only an opener."

Cynthia sat down. His instincts were almost certainly correct, but she did not want to think about the future right there and then.

"Could you do something for me, Harry Carlisle?"

"Sure, anything."

"Bring that bottle of vodka and come and fuck me some more. There's too many people walking on our graves."

Winters

Rogers pulled the car over to the curb in disgust. He slapped the wheel hard with the heels of his hands. "This can't be right."

Winters slowly twisted his Academy ring. He felt the shock just as strongly as his companion. Only moments earlier they had been informed that the warrants for Alien Proverb had been revoked on the authority of no less than the president himself. To make matters worse, a number of the lesser warrants had also been canceled, including the one for Carlisle that he had sworn out himself.

"What are they trying to do to us, make us look like complete idiots?"

For the last three hours, they had been chasing their tails all over the city following fruitless leads on Proverb and his people. Neither man could ever remember when a day had gone so disastrously wrong. As Monday dawned, the deacons had been on top of the world. The first shift at Astor Place had strutted like roosters. The riot outside the Garden had been crushed and, although the civilian casualty figures were running just under two hundred, the general feeling was that those numbers were acceptable. There had also been two deacons, one STG, and three regular cops slain. It was the arithmetic of eyes and teeth. Proverb was still at large, but it was only a matter of time. A figure as public as he was could not hide for long. Even if he went to Canada, they would get him in the end. The opposition that he represented appeared to have been effectively crushed. It was starting to look as if they were on the threshold of a glorious new era. Proverb was down for the count. The PD would be quickly brought to heel. Soon they would have a free hand to deal with the Lefthand Path and all the other terrorist groups. The officers in the corridors of CCC had a light in their eye and a spring in their step.

By noon, the light had faded and the spring was a great deal more tentative. Things were starting to come apart like an old pair of overalls and nobody could quite understand why. Someone appeared to have caught the ear of the president, and whoever it was had been no friend of the New York deacons. At ten-thirty, a video-conference was netted between New York and Washington. Those wired in included the vice president, Attorney General Harrison, the mayor, the police commissioner, the local military commandant, and Senior Deacon Booth.

The deacons were effectively isolated by a threat from Washington to place the city under martial law. The other city agencies were quick to point the finger. Words like 'excessive force' and 'incompetence' were being bandied about. At twelve-thirty, Dreisler had been summoned and Booth had been placed under arrest. The senior deacon was to be the scapegoat of the moment. The shock spread through deacon posts all over the city. The final blow had come with this most recent bulletin. Proverb was going to get away with it, at least for the time being.

The city itself had a strange feel to it. The streets were unnaturally empty for a Monday afternoon. Large numbers had stayed home from work, and even the lines outside the supermarkets were noticeably shorter. The usual schizophrenia of the censored media had almost reached its breaking strain. Everyone in the city knew about the bloodshed of the night before, but the media in no way acknowledged that it had even happened. There were reports coming in via Virginia Beach of how rumors were spreading through other cities that a vision of the Four Horsemen had appeared right in the heart of Manhattan. It was being treated as a harbinger of The End.

Something else that was spreading was the slogan 'There will be a cleansing of the temple'. Some bunch of subversives had been busy in the night. The words were daubed on walls all over town. Winters felt very uneasy when he looked at them. He could not forget the moment when the same phrase had appeared on his computer terminal. He and Rogers were parked in front of a boarded-up storefront on Park Avenue South a little to the north of Union Square. It was covered with half-torn-down duraprint posters for the Proverb show. 'There will be a cleansing of the temple' had been pressure-painted right across them all in foot-high, vibrating yellow letters.

"You want to go and rip that thing down?"

Rogers, who seemed to be taking the catastrophic course of events very personally, shook his head. "Why bother? There are hundreds of them."

"So what do we do? Head back to Astor Place?"

"I should imagine that CCC is the last place we want to be. There's probably faeces hitting the fan all over the building."

Winters was thoughtful. The bruising around his groin was still painful. "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to forget that we heard about the warrant on Carlisle being dropped and go and pick him up anyway. We know where he is. He went home with that whore Cynthia Kline."

Rogers shook his head. "They'd crucify you if you mess with Carlisle after what happened today. Besides, it's not only Carlisle, you'd also be messing with this month's party girl."

"This week's party girl, the way that she's going."

"You still don't want to put your neck on the rail."

Winters scowled. He didn't like Rogers and was not happy about being paired with him, but he had not imagined that the man would be so chicken-shit.

"I'd like to do something about him. He isn't going to get away with what he did to me."

"There are more ways of skinning a cat."

Winters glanced sidelong at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Think about it."

Rogers dropped the slightest hint of a wink. Winters looked at him long and hard. He had not suspected it of Rogers. He was seeing him in a new light. "You mean you're a- – "

Rogers grinned. "Don't say it. There's no such thing."

The word that they were not using was 'magician'. The Magicians were a legend among the deacons, and in other quarters as well. They were a powerful and highly secret society of officers with a very radical attitude toward the enforcement of social order and the elimination of enemies. They were called the Magicians because they made people disappear. Membership of the Magicians was also supposed to be an inside track to promotion. They were the clandestine cream of the agency.

Rogers had taken out his wallet. He pulled out a small pink card. "You know that a replacement for Fifteenth Street has opened up?"

"I didn't. I…"

Rogers indicated that he should take the card. "Why don't you come along tonight?"

Winters quickly shook his head. The thought of dim lights and perfume started an uncomfortable constriction in his chest. "I don't think…"

Rogers did not let him finish. "You're not hearing me. I said why don't you come along tonight, relax, and have a little fun? You'll be contacted, and you'll meet with some people. It's possible that the case of Lieutenant Harry Carlisle will come under discussion."

Winters swallowed hard. The constriction had gone and there was an excitement building inside him. "I'll be there."

"Good."

Rogers put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. He was grinning cheerfully, his mood totally changed. "I tell you what, let's roust some street punk and work off a few frustrations."

Mansard

Rita looked up from the intercom. "There's three deacons on their way up."

Fear clutched at Charlie Mansard's brain. He prayed that he had heard wrong. "Say that again."

"Three deacons, to see you."

Suddenly there was cold sweat under his armpits and beading his back. Even the normally unshakable Rita had turned the color of a corpse.

"Did they look serious?"

"Of course they looked serious. Deacons always look serious."

"Oh, Christ."

Here was the moment that he had been dreading all night. Indeed, here was the moment that he had been dreading ever since the Fundamentalists had first taken power. It was only the best part of a bottle of scotch inside him that stopped him from going headfirst out of the window. He had always joked about the day when the deacons came for him, but now that the day seemed to have really arrived, he was more terrified than he could ever remember. All the torture stories started to close in on him. He was not going to be tortured. At the very suggestion of physical pain, he would talk. He would cooperate fully. He would tell them anything.

Rita was looking at him uncertainly. "Do you want me to stay?"

Mansard quickly shook his head. "No, get the hell out of here. Tell all the others you see to make themselves scarce. The fewer of us involved in this the better."

Most of the crew were scattered around the building or in the bar down the street. By far the majority had come there straight from the Garden; the others had drifted in quite soon after. Nobody seemed to know where to go or what to do. They had put up the biggest projected image ever, and then two hundred people had died. Mansard's crew seemed to want to stay together as a group and share the confused depression.

Rita did not need any second urging. She gathered up her coat and bag and slipped out the side door. Mansard sat back in his chair and did his best to compose himself for the arrival of the deacons. Without thinking about it, he took a pencil out of the organizer on the desk and started tapping it on the Lucite top. With Proverb on the run, he did not have a friend in the world. He had called a few of the preachers for whom he worked regularly, but they had all been in meetings or at prayer. None of them could be disturbed.

The deacons knocked. Mansard raised his eyebrows. They were observing the niceties. Maybe he still had some value. He counted to five.

"Come in."

A junior officer came through the door first, holding it open for his boss. The top man of the trio sauntered in with studied deacon arrogance. His lip was slightly curled as if there were a bad smell under his nose. The heavy brought up the rear. He had a machine pistol slung under his right arm. The situation did not have the air of a social call. The three arranged themselves in front of his desk in positions of courteous menace. Charlie Mansard looked at each of them in turn. They were all variations on the same theme, cold-eyed and clean-shaven with those thin, smug, lipless mouths. The young one was a mere flunky, nodding and opening doors and absorbing the moves. The heavy was wider and flatter, flat mid-European cheekbones and a flat forehead. He had huge hands that looked built for crushing. Mansard did not even want to look at those hands. The top deacon did the talking. He was one of the ones with that constant aura of amused superiority. Soon they would be cloning the bastards.

"Charles Mansard?"

"Yes."

"Charles Everett Mansard?"

Mansard sighed. "Right. Charles Everett Mansard."

"Would you please come with us?"

The deacon's tone left no space for a refusal. Mansard felt sick, but he did not immediately move. He tried to maintain as much dignity as he could. He carefully replaced the pencil in the organizer.

"Am I being arrested?"

"Not at this moment, but we do want to ask you a number of questions."

"So please ask them."

"It'd be better if you came with us."

"I'm a very busy man. Couldn't you simply ask your questions here?"

The heavy started giving him a very hard stare. The top deacon leaned forward and placed a black-gloved hand on the top of Mansard's desk. "It would be better if the questioning was conducted down at the Astor Place complex."

Mansard was wondering if his legs would actually support him. He did not want to have to be carried from his own office. The top deacon straightened up. He glanced at the heavy, who managed to flex his muscles without actually moving. Mansard pushed himself up from the chair. His legs held.

"I'll get my coat."

The phone rang.

The top deacon put a hand on it but did not pick up the handset. Mansard looked at him questioningly. The top deacon shook his head.

"The phone will have to wait."

It continued to ring, nine times in all. When it stopped the deacon removed his hand.

"Shall we go?"

The door was pushed open, and Rita walked in just as if it were any other day. There was no sign of her coat or bag. "Charlie, you'd better take this call. It sounds important."

The booze was slowing him down. He did not have a clue as to what was happening.

The top deacon swung around. "There will be no phone calls."

Rita looked at the deacons as if she were seeing them for the first time and did not like what she saw. "I think you'll want him to take this one. It's from the White House."

The deacons froze. Junior and the heavy both looked at their boss for some sort of signal. He seemed at a loss as to which way to jump. Mansard took advantage of his indecision and slowly picked up the phone. He wished mat he had not drunk so much. The top deacon reached for the handset.

Mansard leaned back out of reach. "I don't think you want to be asking the White House if it's really them."

The top deacon stopped in his tracks. If Mansard had not already been so shook up, he would have enjoyed the man's discomfort. He spoke into the phone. "Mansard here."

The voice on the other end was as smooth as silk and twice as professional. "Charles Mansard?"

"Speaking."

"This is Ron Cableman, Charles. I'm President Faithful's Director of Special Projects. I '11 be in New York tomorrow, and I wonder if we might meet."

Mansard hated to be called Charles, particularly by people he had never met. "Could you give me some idea what we might be discussing, Ron?"

"Despite last night's very tragic incidents, the president was greatly impressed with your sky walker. I'd like to talk about the possibility of you doing the same kind of thing at a future presidential event."

Mansard laughed with relief. "I'd be delighted to meet you, Ron. There is, however, one small problem."

Ron Cableman's voice was suddenly very cautious. "A problem, Charles?"

"Right at the moment, I have an office full of deacons, and they seem to be trying to arrest me."

Ron Cableman sounded less than happy. "Why are they arresting you, Charles?"

"They seem to think I'm somehow responsible for last night's tragic incidents."

Ron sounded considerably relieved. "Perhaps I should speak to these deacons, Charles."

"I wish you would, Ron."

Ron Cableman spoke to the top deacon for just over a minute, during which time the deacon said almost nothing. By the end of it, he was all but standing to attention. Finally he handed the phone back to Mansard. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if it were choking him. He avoided Mansard's eyes.

"I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding. I'm sorry you've been troubled."

Mansard waved them away. They left quickly. Only the heavy looked back. His eyes indicated that, as far as he was concerned, it was only a reprieve, not a pardon. Mansard went back to Ron Cableman with a slight shudder. That had been much too close.

"Well, I guess I have to thank you for that, Ron. I never have been very good with policemen. About tomorrow, shall we say the Skylounge at one? You know it? I thought you would. Ciao to you, too."

He hung up and regarded Rita with some suspicion. "So who cooked up the phony call?"

"It wasn't a phony call."

"They'll be straight back and madder than hell. I don't think it's helped anything."

"It wasn't a phony call."

Mansard shook his head. His mind had to be caving in. "What?"

"The call was the real deal."

"Are you telling me that the president wants to hire us, after everything that's happened?"

Rita nodded. Mansard stood up. He moved like a man in shock.

"I'm going to the bar. I have to think about this."

Speedboat

The cab slowed to a stop in front of Terminal 4 at La Guardia. Speedboat slowly climbed out and handed the driver three twenties.

"Keep the change."

For a few seconds he just stood on the curb and looked around. He had seen too many old movies where people jumped on planes without a second thought, and airports were bright gleaming places with cocktail bars and newsstands packed with souvenirs, where sexy flight attendants made dates with handsome men in expensive suits. Speedboat pulled his parka around his shoulders. This place was like an armed camp. Ever since the cab had turned off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, they had been driving through various levels of anti-terrorist defenses. Armored cars and light tanks were parked along the service roads and runways. The major intersections were controlled by quadguns in sandbagged emplacements. Even the most minimal security area was surrounded by rusting razor wire. The cab driver told him that there were even patrol boats out on the water under the flight paths.

He thought he had never been so pleased to see a cab for hire in his life. The scene outside the Garden, when he finally managed to get out of there with his forged travel passes in his pocket, had been like a scene from a World War II horror show. There were bodies strewn all across Eighth Avenue, and the road surface was slick and black with drying blood. The air was filled with sirens and the gut-wrenching stench of EZA. Emergency medical units came and went, but there were not enough of them to clear the hundreds of injured. Detainees in prison gray had been drafted up from the Tombs to help load the dead onto sanitation trucks. The helicopters that still clattered overhead were the sleek modern craft used by the STG, not the old and battered Cobras and Hueys that belonged to the police department. When people inside the Garden had talked about a massacre going on, he had thought they were exaggerating. The first step outside, however, proved them to have been perfectly accurate.

He had been extremely reluctant to leave the comparative safety of the Garden. The STG was everywhere. Their squad captains were having the greatest difficulty stopping their troops from randomly savaging people who had done nothing but have the bad fortune to be out on the street. Scarcely a minute passed without the crack of an electric club and the resulting screams. Proverb's biblical hell had been made flesh. At first, Speedboat found safety in numbers, sheltering behind a crowd of the tech crew who had all left together, but as they dispersed to go their separate ways, he struck out on his own. Most of the STG seemed to be straggling back up Eighth Avenue from the twenties, so he headed due east to get away from them in the fastest possible time. His objective was a derelict tenement on East Third where he had cached the remainder of his money. The streets were busy for the small hours of a Monday morning. Every block had its straggling gangs of the stumbling, the glazed-eyed, and the all-too-frequently bloody. Wary knots of uncomfortable nightstick-tapping cops were gathered under the few streetlamps that were still working. Many of the stragglers were drunk, having tried and failed to blot out the horror with alcohol. The bars had been shut down when the trouble started, but the downtown shebeens and speakeasies were doing a roaring, if grim, trade. It was like the end of some nightmarish blood-soaked New Year's Eve.

Once inside the building on Third, Speedboat had worked in complete darkness. He turned off his jury-rigged electronics and emptied the hidden homemade safe. Back on the street, he was even more nervous now that he was carrying his traveling money. To his amazement, he had walked only a block when the cab came into sight with its 'For Hire' sign glowing like the morning sun. He had actually waved money to get it to stop.

The wind at La Guardia was chill. Speedboat realized that he had been standing on the curb for too long. Two of the airport's own paramilitary rentacops had started looking him over. If he did not move on into the system, they would begin to get interested. He walked toward the first-stage security check. It was the same basic system as the sensor tunnel that he had walked through to get into the Garden, but it was much older and therefore much less sophisticated. Nothing took an objection to him, and he found himself in the main body of the airport. It was a dirty, dilapidated place of cracked and smeared glass and degenerate plastic. The walls were plastered with cheap government posters, mainly red and black ones warning of the criminality of various kinds of behavior and the penalties that might be expected. There were quite a number that referred to forgery and undocumented travel. A distorting sound system played sacred feelgood music. One closed-off section of the arrival area was still scarred and blackened from last year's bomb attack.

At least half of those traveling were in some branch of the military. Again it was reminiscent of a World War II movie. Brown, tan, and olive-drab uniforms were stretched out on benches or sprawled in broken TV chairs. Some had even sacked out on the gum-crusted carpet with their heads on their kits. The traveling civilians were a sorry bunch who had the dull, hopeless look of people who were for from convinced that their plane would come at all. Of course, La Guardia was the poor folk's airport, from which the domestic cattle cars went to Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth. Forty miles away at Koch International there were cocktail bars and restaurants and people who took the suborbitals to Manila and Rio de Janeiro.

Before a person could even purchase a ticket, there was a three-phase document check. The first level was comparatively benign, a counter where airport clerks checked out the documents before the bearer moved on to population control and finally the deacons.

Speedboat joined that line. It took him almost an hour to reach the counter, and by that point he was more bored than worried. But when he faced the unsmiling clerk with sandy hair, bad teeth, and a receding chin, all his fears came back.

The clerk looked over the two flimsy plastic strips that gave him the right to travel and then looked at him. "Mr. Evan?"

The documents identified Speedboat as Leroy Evan, a U.S. citizen with a Canadian grandmother in Toronto. She was dying, and he had compassionate permission to visit her.

"Yes?" he said politely.

"Mr. Leroy Evan?"

"That's right."

The clerk dropped the plastic into the scan slot in his computer terminal.

"I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother."

"You're very kind."

The clerk took a red folder from under the counter and put Speedboat's plastic slips in it. He handed the folder to Speedboat. "Please follow the red line to the bench, Mr. Evan, and wait there."

He indicated a bench against the wall. Two sorry-looking men were already sitting there, clutching red folders. Speedboat's heart sank. The papers were no good. He had been ripped off and now he was busted.

The unsmiling clerk processed two more people and then put up the 'Use Next Position' sign. He walked over to where Speedboat was sitting.

"Please come with me, Mr. Evan."

There was a line of private interview cubicles behind the counter. As Speedboat followed the clerk toward them, he was certain that he was terminally screwed. That bastard at the Garden – -if he ever got out of all this, he would kill the creep.

Inside the cubicle, there was a desk and a chair. The clerk sat in the chair. Speedboat had to stand. The clerk held up the flimsy plastic strips.

"You understand that one of these allows you to fly to Buffalo and the other to cross the border on the Trailways bus to Toronto?"

"Right."

The clerk shook his head. "Wrong."

"Wrong?"

"These are really terrible."

"What do you mean?"

"You actually paid for these?"

"I don't understand."

"These are very poor forgeries. You were robbed, my friend."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do." He held out the documents to Speedboat. "Look at the ink, look at the embossing. The data fix only just holds up."

Speedboat sagged. There was no point in going on pretending. "So what happens now?"

"The one for the flight to Buffalo isn't too bad. Nobody looks too closely at domestic flights, and you could get away with using it. The one for Toronto is a joke. It'll never stand up to the kind of scrutiny that you'll get at the border. I'd sell it if I was you."

"Say what?"

"Sell it to another sucker. Try to cut your losses."

Speedboat could not believe what he was hearing. "Are you serious?"

"Sure I'm serious. You look like you know your way around. In tact, I'll do you a favor. I'll give you a hundred for it right now."

Speedboat was at a loss. "Why should you do that?"

The clerk smiled for the first time. "Because I can get five hundred for it inside of an hour."

Speedboat knew that corruption was endemic, but this was absurd. It was also reeked of a possible con job. "I don't know about this."

The clerk made a dismissive gesture. "I suppose I could do my job and turn you in."

"How do I know it's bad forgery? I've only got your word for that."

The clerk had pulled out a dirty hundred. "You want to take a chance on it?"

"What about the one for Buffalo? You want to buy that, too?" The clerk shook his head. "If you've got some money, you might as well go on to Buffalo."

"What's the point of going to Buffalo, if I can't cross the border?"

The clerk was smiling again. "It's easy to find someone in Buffalo to take you across. It's a local industry in Buffalo."

"It is?"

"Sure."

The clerk had produced a pen. He wrote a phone number on the hundred. "Call this number when you get there. They'll take care of you."

Speedboat was certain that the goddamn clerk was running a con on him, but he was not so certain that he was going to bet his life on it. In this game, the loser went to a camp.

"I'll take the hundred."

Kline

Harry Carlisle had fallen asleep in front of the TV. He and Cynthia had spent the afternoon drinking and making love until a smug, bleary exhaustion had set in. Unfortunately Cynthia could not quite enjoy the sensation. The software in her bag had to be checked out. She could not completely bury it in the back of her mind. The uneasiness kept coming back. There could be urgent instructions or even some kind of warning. There could be real trouble bearing down on her while she was trying to lose herself drinking and fucking this quietly charming police lieutenant.

She looked closely at Carlisle. He was dead to the world. Even the noisy chatter of Channel 8's Happy Talk News did not show any sign of waking him. She climbed out of bed and slipped into the hapi coat she used as a robe. She removed the cover from the laptop. A second glance at Carlisle assured her that he was sound asleep. She turned on the power, took the software from her bag, and loaded it. She scrolled quickly through the cover program. It was a rather dull piece of cheap porn based on the romance stories of Lydia Lovelock. She fed in her recognition code, and the software down-leveled to her hidden instructions. A message appeared on the screen.

IN THE NEXT WEEK YOU WILL CEASE TO WORK WITH LONG-STREET. YOU WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO C86 COMPUTER COMPLEX. ONCE THAT HAS HAPPENED, YOU WILL ALWAYS CARRY THIS SOFTWARE WITH YOU DURING YOUR DUTY HOURS. THERE MUST BE NO MISTAKE ABOUT THIS. THE SOFTWARE MUST ALWAYS BE WITH YOU. AT SOME POINT IN THE NEXT MONTH, THE CODE PHRASE 'LOOK TO THE SKIES' WILL APPEAR ON YOUR WORKSTATION MONITOR. THE MOMENT THE CODE HAS BEEN DISPLAYED, YOU WILL LOAD THE SOFTWARE CONTAINED ON THIS DISK AND DIRECTFEED TO VIRGINIA BEACH ON THE 771-36971-2458-666 1-LINE INTERFACE. WHEN THIS TASK HAS BEEN COMPLETED, YOU WILL RECEIVE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Harry Carlisle mumbled something in his sleep. Cynthia quickly closed the file and turned off the laptop. At least the instructions were not something that needed instant attention. She slid quietly back into bed. Harry mumbled again. He turned over and, without opening his eyes, reached out and placed a hand on her stomach. She wriggled close to him. There was security in the warmth of his body.

Winters

"You and I are going on a journey of discovery together to the dark of your soul. I will be both your mistress and your guide and I will expect your absolute obedience. I will take you to places that you have only imagined and didn't think could exist. I will take you even farther than that, beyond your petty fears and inhibitions, to a place where you will see visions of yourself that you will hardly recognize. Do you understand me?"

"I think so… mistress."

The tip of the leather crop moved slowly down the length of his spine. "You don't think. You are my slave and you merely obey. Repeat that."

"I don't think. I am your slave and I merely obey, mistress."

The tip of the leather crop had reached the top of his buttocks. Although its touch was as light as a feather, the skin beneath it crawled. It had to be in anticipation of the cruelties that would undoubtedly come later. Anticipation was half the experience. He knew she was well aware of that. The whip tapped against his flesh, emphasizing the point.

"Obedience is everything. As we go along, you will discover that our relationship is controlled by rules, and the punishments that I shall inflict on you when you break them. My word is the law, and you mean nothing. I require just two things from you. You obey me absolutely, and you pay me for the privilege. I don't even have to like you. I merely tolerate. Now do you understand me?"

"I understand you, mistress."

Winters was naked and completely helpless. His arms were stretched above his head and secured at the wrists by thick leather straps with chrome buckles. There was a second, wider strap around his waist, cinching him tight to the polished mahogany post in the center of the room. It was the need to be helpless that had really brought him to this place and caused him to strip and abase himself in front of a strange young whore in an exotic costume. It was a release of tensions and frustration, but the pain and the ritual somehow made it something for which he was not responsible. He did not do anything – it was all done to him. It was as she said: he paid and obeyed. The pleasure and the punishment were one. The flesh lusted and was mortified. The sin was paid for even as it was committed. Jesus could surely go along with that. There were times in the night, however, when he was not sure that Jesus was quite so accommodating.

The walls of the room were mirrored. If he turned his head in either direction he could see multiple images of himself bound to the whipping post and the woman standing arrogantly behind him, flexing the leather crop as if she were undecided as to where oil his body to lay the first stripe. She was a figure of costume fantasy. Her legs and arms were swathed in black, form-fitting patent leather; sleek thigh-length boots with high, spiked heels; and long evening gloves that reached to her upper arms. Her torso was laced into a corset of the same material in a cruel flame red. It was cut so that it exposed her pubic hair and allowed her ample breasts to swing free each time she moved. Her wig was a high-teased black bouf with flame tips, and her stark, dramatic makeup gave her the look of a depraved, contemptuous corpse.

"There will be times when you may feel that I'm too cruel to you. There will be times when you may wonder if my punishments are too harsh, too out of proportion to your wretched little transgressions. There will be times when you'll beg for mercy."

"I wouldn't do that, mistress."

"Did I ask you to speak?"

It was all part of the game.

"I'm sorry, I – "

"I'm tired of listening to your whining, I'm going to gag you."

He watched her in the minors as she went to the equipment rack on the far wall. When she came back with the rubber ball gag, he struggled a little as she forced the gag into his mouth.

"No… please…"

His protest earned him three quick cuts of the crop. All that was part of the game, too. He might struggle and protest, but they both knew that she was doing exactly what he wanted.

When she finally released him from his bonds, he sank to the floor at the bottom of the post. He was emotionally drained, so drained, in fact, that he did not move when the phone on the wall by the soundproof door gave a soft purring ring. The whore's high heels clapped across the hardwood floor. She picked up the phone and listened. Finally she nodded and hung up.

She looked down at Winters. "You better get your clothes on. They want you down in the basement right now."

Winters was confused. "The basement?"

"The private dining room, where they get down to the really weird shit."

She hung the whip on the equipment board and opened the door. "Behave yourself."

She was gone. A bemused Winters picked himself up off the floor. It had to be the Magicians. Rogers had as good as said so. Winters had no idea what to expect. He pictured some dark Masonic Temple with ceremonies and swords, but somehow that was not quite right. The Magicians were more than just playacting businessmen. They meted out life and death. They were faceless and all-powerful.

As he took his shirt from the hanger, he caught sight of his back in the mirror. It was a mass of crisscrossing red welts. The skin was broken in a number of places, and he could see streaks of fresh blood. He quickly dressed. Guilt had started to set in, and the usual questions were beginning to nag at him. Why did he come to places like this? Why did he always have to give in to his dark impulses? The routine was always the same, and he could usually count on the guilt lasting well into the next day. But this time, the pattern was broken. As he rode down in the elevator, guilt was quickly replaced by an excited anticipation and more than a little fear. If this was really the start of his induction into the Magicians, it could well be the making of his career. He felt as if he were on his way to an examination or an audition.

The elevator doors opened, and Winters had to restrain himself from taking a quick step back. A tall bulky figure in a dark suit was waiting for him; a blue metal-flake helmet completely covered the man's head, and a black visor hid his face. "I am the Master-at-Arms," he announced ominously.

Winters force himself to step out of the elevator. "Where do we go?"

"We wait here until we are summoned."

There was an electronic distortion on the Master-at-Arms' voice, no doubt some kind of gizmo built into the helmet. The Magicians appeared to take pains to maintain their anonymity, Winters reflected. The two of them waited in front of the basement elevator for almost five minutes before a red light flashed and a tone sounded. The Master-at-Arms indicated that Winters should follow. They walked down a short corridor that led to a pair of solid double doors with Victorian brass fittings. The huge man opened them with a solemn flourish.

"Deacon Winters waits without, in answer to summons."

Another electronically distorted voice came from beyond the doors. "Let Deacon Winters enter and be recognized."

The Master-at-Arms beckoned. Winters took a deep breath and walked forward. The private dining room was large and gloomy. It was not exactly the Masonic Temple he had imagined, but it had many of the same elements. The walls were draped in purple velvet, giving the long, narrow room a kind of ecclesiastic hush. A long dining table was the centerpiece of the room, and a very lavish dinner had just been completed. Port and cognac had been circulating, and the smell of cigar smoke was in the air. The Magicians, if that was who they really were, appeared to look after themselves very well.

By far the most striking feature of the basement dining room was the men grouped around the table. There were thirteen of them, six on each side and one presiding at the head. Each wore a different color motorcycle-style helmet and a black, all-concealing visor just like the Master-at-Arms. The presiding officer's helmet was gold. The overall effect was not unlike a high-tech version of the Ku Klux Klan. Winters had to presume that the helmets had been put on for his benefit. He could not see how anyone could eat, drink, or smoke a cigar while wearing one of those things.

There was a vacant chair at the foot of the table. Winters suspected that it was for him. He was also pretty sure that the thirteen for dinner was a symbolic number and not the entire membership of the Magicians.

The presiding officer in the gold helmet raised a hand. "You are Winters?"

Winters wondered how many familiar faces were hidden behind the dark visors. Maybe Rogers was among them. "I am."

"Please remain standing and raise your right hand."

Winters did exactly as he was told. It seemed to be a night for unquestioning obedience.

"Please repeat after me. 'I swear by almighty God and on my oath as a deacon…' "

"I swear by almighty God and on my oath as a deacon…"

" '… that I will never reveal to any third party the nature of this meeting or anything that may pass between us at this or subsequent meetings.' "

"… that I will never reveal to any third party the nature of this meeting or anything that may pass between us at this of subsequent meetings."

"'On pain of death.'"

"On pain of death."

"Do you understand the oath that you have just sworn?"

"I do."

"You may be seated."

Winters sat down. The man to the right of him, wearing a green metal-flake helmet, leaned forward.

"Would you care for a cognac, Winters?" His voice, too, was artificially distorted.

Winters hesitated. It could be a personality test. "I…"

The presiding officer laughed. The sound came out of the distortion gizmo as a harsh grate. "Have a drink, man. Here we judge a deacon by his spirit, not by his capacity for abstinence."

The others laughed. The helmets and the distorted voices put a decidedly bizarre edge on the whole proceedings. The officer in the gold helmet again raised his hand. It was the sign for what appeared to be a prepared speech.

"Deacon Winters, we are off duty, and we allow ourselves a degree of informality, but please don't be confused. The founding principles of this society – The Society That Does Not Speak Its Name – are deadly serious. We are all well aware that our nation and our faith are in a state of siege. All around us there are enemies, threatening our borders and even infiltrating the very fabric of our culture. The heretics, the communists, the Satan worshipers, and the atheists are ranged against us in a war to the death. The shuffling hordes of the genetically inferior are poised to overrun us. They would show us no mercy, and we, in turn, must show no mercy to them. It is unfortunate that what we think of the civilized niceties make it all too easy for the agents of chaos and Godlessness to move in among us, causing murder and destruction, and for their sympathizers and fellow travelers to spread their poisonous and pornographic sedition."

Gold Helmet paused to let his words sink in. Winters nodded to show that he was in complete agreement. There had been a moment when he had thought he recognized the voice, but then he was not sure. Gold Helmet continued.

"This society was formed by a small group of officers who decided that, although regrettable, it was time for them to sacrifice those niceties and to take the fight to the enemy with the single-minded determination and cold ruthlessness that makes our enemy so implacable. We work alone and in secret, but make no mistake about the reasons for this. We are in no way ashamed of what we do. There can be no shame in doing the Lord's work, no matter how distasteful it may be. In a conflict of this kind, secrecy is power, secrecy is freedom, secrecy enables us to operate as unhindered as our enemies. Do you understand me, Deacon Winters?"

Winters nodded vigorously. "Indeed I do. I understand fully."

"We do not suffer a Satanist to live, Deacon Winters."

"Those are my sentiments entirely."

Green Helmet refilled Winters' brandy snifter.

The officer on Gold Helmet's left took up the story. His helmet was silver.

"Before the enemy can be eradicated, he must first be identified. Although society has the considerable resources of the service at its disposal, it still depends on individual input to detect the degenerates who walk among us. Many of them are in protected positions and can only be reached by unorthodox means. I believe you have information regarding just such a subversive?"

This time Winters' nod was slow and deliberate. "Yes, I do."

"His name?"

"Lieutenant Harry Carlisle of the NYPD. Even in his public conversation, he constantly borders on open heresy. God knows what he – "

Silver Helmet cut him off. "We have already had a number of reports on Lieutenant Carlisle."

"You mean I'm not the only one?"

"Far from it."

Winters was puzzled. If other people had already fingered Carlisle to the Magicians, why had he been summoned? It hardly made any sense. Then Gold Helmet gave him the answer.

"Deacon Winters, would you be willing to assist in the execution of Lieutenant Harry Carlisle?"

It was better than he had hoped. They did not only want his information, they actually wanted him to take part in the hit. They had to be considering him for admission to the society. He thought of the pain that Carlisle's kick to his groin had caused, and he answered without hesitation.

"I'd be honored."

"Then you will be contacted."